BALTIMORE – UMBC women's basketball head coach Phil Stern was chosen as one of 36 coaches to attend the Center for Coaching Excellence seminar put on by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) on the campus of Columbia University.

The invitational-only event was a two-and-a-half day leadership training program utilizing interactive learning sessions and self-assessment to introduce coaches to various aspects of leadership, as well as a deeper understanding of the importance of ethics and integrity in women's college basketball.

Stern is entering his 13th season with the Retrievers and is nine victories shy of becoming the program's all-time wins leader. Stern is one of only three active head coaches in the America East to have won an America East title, piloting the Retrievers to a 2007 league crown as the seven seed, and has guided UMBC to a pair of postseason tournaments (NCAA in 2007 and the WNIT in 2011).

The WBCA was founded in 1981 and has a mission to promote women's basketball by unifying coaches at all levels to develop a reputable identity for the sport of women's basketball and to foster and promote the development of the game of basketball as a sport for women and girls.